198: She knows, he doesn't

“Bang!”

Their eyes met, and he grabbed her hand as she was about to cover her face with a mask.

Zheng Yunxu symbolically struggled for a moment before letting go, her gaze flicking elsewhere.

Immediately after, she was pressed down onto the bed by Jiang Hanwen, who held her shoulders.

“There are quite a few scars. I’ll have to peel them back layer by layer. You can’t speak at all today, so is there anything else you want to say?”

Jiang Hanwen asked.

Zheng Yunxu stared directly into his eyes, a strange crimson flickering in her black pupils.

“If everyone under the Black Wind Martial Hall was killed by me, would you still be here?”

Jiang Hanwen didn’t answer, but instead asked:

“Have you ever thought of killing me?”

Zheng Yunxu got the answer she wanted and closed her eyes.

“Whoosh!”

Sharp spider legs pierced through the bed, emerging from her back, making her look like a giant human spider lying there.

Zheng Yunxu’s heart rate slowed by three times, like a transition from explosive DJ music to soothing pure melodies.

Without any sleeping incense, she had already fallen into a deep sleep.

At this moment, whatever Jiang Hanwen did, the person on the bed would not know, or rather, would not have time to react.

Jiang Hanwen didn’t know what the Ethereal Blood Spider was.

But anything that came from an ancient shaman, and required so much effort, was definitely not ordinary.

Not to mention, the closer he got, the clearer his perception of Zheng Yunxu became.

If Xia Zhijie was five colorful braziers of fire, then Zheng Yunxu before him was an unfathomable abyss, devouring everything around it; the two were completely not on the same level.

Suddenly, he seemed to understand something.

Why Xia Zhijie had refused to apologize to Zheng Yunxu back then.

Perhaps besides his pride, Xia Zhijie had seen something, and didn’t dare to bring it up again, fearing to enrage Zheng Yunxu, so he always kept his distance.

The woman in front of him would sooner or later become a Devil Head who killed without batting an eye.

What should he do?

Should he enforce the Dao on behalf of the heavens, or release the tiger back to the mountains?

This was Zheng Yunxu’s question.

His answer was, even if you are truly a Devil Head, so what?

Jiang Hanwen picked up his knife, performed the Gathering Life Technique with his left hand, cut away the necrotic flesh with his right, and applied medicinal powder.

With the medicinal powder, the Gathering Life Technique, and his surgical precision at the sub-millimeter level, he could completely give Zheng Yunxu a perfectly crafted, flawless face.

But he didn’t. As the old saying goes:

A golden nest or a silver nest is not as good as one’s own doghouse.

No matter how beautiful a face, it’s not as good as the one given by one’s parents. For Zheng Yunxu, that meant recovery, recognition, and even rebirth.

Based on this situation, Jiang Hanwen had to heal layer by layer, then peel back old wounds layer by layer, and then heal again.

This repeated until all the scars were healed, restoring her original appearance.

From the bright morning sun to the night’s wind and snow, Jiang Hanwen did not leave the bedside for a single moment.

This was hard on the two men by the wall.

Xia Zhijie looked at the lights on the fourth-story rooftop and mumbled:

“Do you think the boss will take her down?”

“You mean, them… doing that?” Wang Ye’s eyes lit up with gossip. His biggest gain today was that his two benefactors were not enemies, but rather had a very good relationship.

Now, hearing such news, his face immediately showed excited anticipation.

“Otherwise, it’s been a whole day. Have you ever seen a single man and woman together for a day without leaving the house?”

Xia Zhijie wisely stroked his chin, his eyes full of expectation.

With Zheng Yunxu’s help, the Heavenly Secret Pavilion’s development was rapid. It would only take another three to five years to basically satisfy the boss’s need for information control over City Name City.

Most importantly, if the two of them could get together, then he would at least be safe in the future.

He wouldn’t have to be terrified and drenched in sweat every time he went to see Zheng Yunxu.

What he felt each time was an increasingly dense mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, endless death. He was scared.

Only Wang Ye, that simpleton, genuinely felt that the woman who saved him was extremely good and kind-hearted.

Wang Ye whispered, “Isn’t it bad for us to peek here? What if the boss gets angry—”

“Then you go first, and do a patrol.”

Wang Ye looked at the rooftop and tightened his clothes.

“I’ll just stay here with you, so it’s not inconvenient if the boss comes out to ask questions.”

If you want to watch the show, just say so; what excuses are you making?

Xia Zhijie scoffed, “You can wait in the courtyard.”

“Where you wait doesn’t matter. You’re not a good friend, ditching me to watch the show.” Wang Ye bumped Xia Zhijie and glared at him irritably.

Xia Zhijie froze for a moment, his face returning to seriousness as he continued to look up at the building.

Wang Ye didn’t notice his abnormality and continued to look up at the show.

The moonlight cast a clear glow, reflected brightly by the snow.

Xia Zhijie’s gaze shifted upwards, seeing a lone cloud floating in the night sky, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

Friends?

He had fled with his grandfather since childhood, seeing through human nature. Such a thing had never existed for him.

He and Wang Ye were merely superior and subordinate, not friends.

Yes, not friends.

The fine snowflakes stopped, and the north wind blew fiercely.

The lights on the rooftop suddenly disappeared.

“Bang!” Xia Zhijie’s shoulder was bumped again.

“Look, they’re coming out!”

Seeing Xia Zhijie freeze again, twice now!

Wang Ye looked over seriously, gazing at him with concern:

“What’s wrong?”

He could see through people’s hearts, so what he saw was a burning flame.

Xia Zhijie’s heart was struck by something.

It was like adding water to a hot oil pan; even if it was just a drop, it challenged his long-held stubborn beliefs.

Though very vague, besides the boss, was there really anyone else who genuinely cared about him?

“N-nothing.”

Xia Zhijie frantically looked upstairs.

The boss was actually walking side by side with Zheng Yunxu. Even from dozens of meters away, he could clearly see a face as fair as jade, capable of captivating a city with a single smile.

The Devil Head, so beautiful?

A strong force tightened around his neck. Xia Zhijie subconsciously reached for his short knife, his muscle memory guiding him to stab at the hand pulling him.

“Screech~”

Wang Ye inexplicably retreated three steps, looking at his neatly cut right sleeve. A crimson line dripped from the wound, landing on the white snow, strikingly obvious.

Upstairs, Jiang Hanwen glanced at the wall on the first floor. Just now, he had clearly detected a gaze.

Two pairs of eyes, were they Xia Zhijie and him?

“What do you want to eat?” he asked.

The howling cold wind filled her ears, but to Zheng Yunxu, this cold wind clearly carried a sense of cheer.

When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see someone else; she saw herself.

The self who had cut her face in her youth to survive.

“I want to eat hotpot, is that okay?” Zheng Yunxu asked, her tentative, melodious voice like a joyful nightingale, striking a chord in her heart’s music.

This was a day she had dreamed of, as her life approached its end.

She saw it.

To restore a flawless face, one must first see the scarred face.

But as long as one sees the scarred face, one will never forget it.

Just as Zheng Yunxu had fled back then, she wanted revenge, but the real catalyst that made her choose to leave was…

She didn’t know how to handle her relationship with Jiang Hanwen.

As soon as she thought that he had seen her face, she would recall those unbearable past events, and those times the mirrors were shattered.

Scars can be a man’s medal, but for a woman, they are absolutely not.

A woman would rather die than let the one she loves see her ugliness.

For them, time stopping at the most beautiful moment is the most romantic way to die.

This man, who stood in the last pure land of her heart, had not lied to her. What he wanted was not beauty; what he wanted was her original self.

As for what her original self looked like, she knew, but he didn’t.

Now, this was the best way to see the outcome.

“At this hour, that place should be closed. If you don’t mind, I’ll cook?” Jiang Hanwen asked.

“Okay.” Zheng Yunxu narrowed her eyes and followed Jiang Hanwen downstairs.

Approaching the courtyard, a faintfishy smell drifted into her nostrils.

Is my fate really so bad, that every time things start to look up, something goes wrong?

Zheng Yunxu’s hands glowed with a metallic cold light, like steel. She wanted to kill!

Jiang Hanwen grabbed her wrist, and a cold sensation traveled up his palm.

“Don’t rush.”